Metaswitch Networks has made its first-ever acquisition, acquiring AppTrigger, a provider of service broker solutions. Among other things, the deal shows the importance of new “abstraction layers” that bridge new IP Multimedia Subsystem (News - Alert) (IMS) and legacy intelligent networks.

 

The addition of the AppTrigger Ignite platform to the Metaswitch product line-up will enable the company to provide standalone service broker solutions, as well as accelerate adoption of its switching and applications product lines in fixed-line and wireless networks in multiple geographical markets.

 

Service brokers dramatically reduce the cost of service deployment by providing a new software mediation capability that automatically normalizes protocols and software interfaces across IMS and IN networks.

 

That’s important because it allows service providers to preserve and extend investments in network infrastructure, while accelerating time to market for new services, by eliminating the chores of writing new interfaces between IMS and IN applications.

 

The service broker acts on an uncoupled basis, without disturbing the underlying legacy or next-generation networks.

 

Use of a service broker allows service providers to run existing voice mail over an IMS network, or calling cards, for example,” says Steve Gleave, Metaswitch Networks VP.

 

“Carriers are increasingly realizing that service brokers are key to their ability to safely and cost-effectively evolve their business models to IP,” says Kevin DeNuccio (News - Alert), Metaswitch CEO. Speed is one issue. It can take time to turn up a new IMS application because custom interfaces often must be built.

 

Cost is the other important issue, as writing custom interfaces costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, typically.

 

AppTrigger’s “Ignite” platform is today deployed in multiple tier one networks worldwide and supports 17 pre-defined application interworking solutions from non-geographical number and local number portability (LNP) to wireless prepaid and network IVR.